RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ma­yaro po­lice are deny­ing that they failed to help Ellen Tr­is­hana Mo­hammed when she re­port­ed death threats a week be­fore her lover chopped her to death, al­most sev­er­ing her neck.

A se­nior of­fi­cer at the sta­tion yes­ter­day said the back­lash from the pub­lic was un­for­tu­nate, es­pe­cial­ly since their area had the low­est crime rates and the high­est de­tec­tion rates.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer ASP Sheri­don Hill con­firmed that two re­ports had been lodged by Mo­hammed, 24, of La Brea Vil­lage, Guayagua­yare, on May 6 and May 7 at the Ma­yaro Po­lice Sta­tion and on both oc­ca­sions, the po­lice re­spond­ed.

Giv­ing de­tails from the sta­tion di­ary re­port, ASP Hill said: “Around 1.05 pm, on Fri­day 6th May, Mo­hammed, 24, ar­rived at the sta­tion and re­port­ed she was with (name called) for the past four months. She re­port­ed around 9.30 pm on Mon­day 2nd May (name called) ac­cused her of be­ing un­faith­ful, grabbed her hand and dealt her a slap to the face. He made threats to kill her.”

Hill fur­ther said: “A state­ment was tak­en from her and she sought med­ical at­ten­tion at Ma­yaro Health Fa­cil­i­ty.”

He added: “Two po­lice of­fi­cers con­duct­ed en­quiries and ac­com­pa­nied Ms Mo­hammed, where they as­sist­ed her in re­triev­ing her clothes which were left out­side. She was es­cort­ed to her moth­er’s home which is near­by. She was ad­vised to ob­tain a pro­tec­tion or­der.”

Hill said around 10.45 pm on May 7, she again re­port­ed that the man threat­ened to kill her and her chil­dren. 

The po­lice act­ed prompt­ly.

“At 12.30 pm on May 7, two po­lice of­fi­cers went to the home of the sus­pect and ad­vised him of the death threats and cau­tioned him to stay away from Mo­hammed,” Hill added.

TTPS ASP (Ag) Public Information Officer Sheridon Hill.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

Mean­while, Mo­hammed’s broth­er Isa­iah yes­ter­day said he was heart­bro­ken over his sis­ter’s death and did not want dis­cord with the po­lice, es­pe­cial­ly when every­one was in deep grief. Just be­fore she died, Isa­iah said Mo­hammed gave her life to Christ.

He ad­mit­ted that his sis­ter had a dif­fi­cult time with men.

“Her first re­la­tion­ship was licks. She used to tell me how (name called) would beat her,” Isa­iah said.

Af­ter that re­la­tion­ship failed, Mo­hammed, 25, re­lied on Isa­iah and her fa­ther Steve Jones to help her care for her three daugh­ters, aged six, three and 18-months.

“She had a hard life. Men used to in­ject fear in­to her. I work as a me­chan­ic and I am a skilled painter. I would do any job I get to make mon­ey to help her mind those chil­dren,” Isa­iah said.

Two months ago, Isa­iah said Mo­hammed start­ed a re­la­tion­ship with a neigh­bour who had re­cent­ly moved in­to the La Brea Vil­lage, Guayagua­yare com­mu­ni­ty. He was 15 years old­er than her and had lived out­side the com­mu­ni­ty for years be­fore mov­ing back.

Isa­iah said when Mo­hammed be­gan stay­ing over at the neigh­bour’s shack, he re­alised she was get­ting in­volved with “trou­ble.”

“She used to sleep there at night but come home dur­ing the day to cook and the chil­dren used to stay by us. In the nights when she go with them there to sleep, but it wasn’t nice for the chil­dren be­cause he used to cuss them un­til they didn’t want to stay there any­more,” Isa­iah said.

Then the man then be­gan hit­ting Mo­hammed. She de­cid­ed to leave the re­la­tion­ship and lodge a re­port with the Ma­yaro po­lice.

“My sis­ter gave her life to Christ. She says she not go­ing back there. She go­ing to live for God and look what hap­pened now,” Isa­iah wept.

How­ev­er, he said his sis­ter should have re­ceived more as­sis­tance from the po­lice.

SEE AL­SO:

Abused women mocked by cops: ‘When it sweet al­lyuh don’t come here’

‘Six times we called po­lice, now she's dead they've come’

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